Growl.

“Shh.”

Grrrrowl.

“Shut up.”

Grrrrrrrrr-

“Good God! Seriously, shut up!”

Every head in the store turned and glanced at where the sound came from. The store owner approached the cashier and laid his hand on his employee’s shoulder. The people went back to shopping and putting food in their baskets, while the foreigner was left glaring at the reason for his outburst.

His stomach.

It was already eight in the evening, and Kibum was mighty hungry. Minho asked for the blonde to stay an extra three hours for that day, since the store owner had so much of the inventory left to do, and a holiday was fast approaching so many people were pouring in. Kibum had already resisted the urge to grab something from the shelves and gorge into it for two whole hours, yet his stomach was trying to trick him from staying ‘til 9pm. He looked a little bit deranged for screaming and talking to his tummy, but the black-haired man knew better.

“You’re okay, Kibum?” Minho asked his employee. Key looked at his boss, asking for help and grasping at his abdomen. The store owner understood and “shooed” the foreigner away from the cash register. Kibum grabbed his things from the back room and bowed to Minho, thanking him.

As the blonde left the little mart, he immediately grabbed the first cab he saw and rode it. He didn’t care if it cost money, his stomach was betraying him so he had to get home fast.

Home.

The place was growing on him so fast. It had only been five days, yet it felt like a month. Going to work every nine o’clock in the morning and going back for dinner at the lodge every six in the evening was as natural as breathing to him. He always found the lodge owner cooking dinner whenever he came at seven o’clock, and the shorter man would always complain why the foreigner came back so early. Kibum just laughed that off and waited until dinner was served. He even helped Jonghyun finish cooking the other night.

The blonde arrived at the cabin with the lights on, and the usual noises of frying and plates clanking on the table were absent. Kibum entered the lodge and headed for the kitchen immediately, smelling something delicious. He followed the scent and found the brunette about to lay his napkin on his lap, ready to dig in. The blonde’s presence startled Jonghyun, resulting to a bump on the shorter man’s knee, in an effort to stand and greet Kibum quickly.

They bowed awkwardly and sat at opposite sides of the table like they did every morning at breakfast and every night during supper. The silence was deafening, and it was such a good thing that Jonghyun decided to break it.

“You finally came. I thought you got lost,” the shorter man smiling as he asked. The taller man smiled in return, slicing his meat and chewing his veggies. The silence went on for a while, and the only noises that could be heard were the scraping of utensils on plates and the clunking of glasses on the table. Kibum decided to continue the conversation.

“I had to work overtime. My boss needed me to stay longer tonight.” Kibum stated. The brunette nodded. “He should make you work overtime more, then. You wouldn’t need to wait for dinner to finish cooking,” Jonghyun joked, earning a chuckle and a light nudge from the foreigner.

“Hey! Why, you don’t want me here?” The blonde asked with his mouth half full, faking a threat. The two were now giggling and laughing at each other.

“It’s not that, I-“ The lodge owner trailed off upon realizing that the foreigner used two languages in his last response. He noticed that Kibum had not spoken in his English accent just now, and that they had been having a straight Korean conversation for the past minute.

“Yah!” Jonghyun nudged Kibum repeatedly. The taller man just laughed, understanding the reason behind the lodge owner’s five-second space out. Korean phrases started spewing out of the lodge owner’s lips, and the blonde just laughed at the priceless expression on the brunette’s face.

The frenzy died down, and they resumed finishing their meals. Kibum checked the fridge for dessert and found nothing but two medium-sized tubs of ice cream. The foreigner darted from the freezer to the brunette who was still finishing his supper, debating within himself if he should ask permission to eat it or not. After a good minute, the lodge owner turned around and saw the blonde lingering in front of the refrigerator. “Hey, just grab the ice cream! You’re wasting the cold!” The shorter man smirked and turned back to finish the last few bites of supper, making Kibum grab for both tubs.

---------------------------------------------

Both men were eating out of ice cream tubs by the time the clock struck nine. They sat on the couch in front of the television. The TV was showing random CFs and dramas, but both men knew no one was actually watching.

“Okay, seriously. Who’s teaching you all the Korean you know?” Jonghyun asked Kibum after clean his spoon which just came from inside his own ice cream tub. The blonde just giggled, seemingly laughing at something which the brunette could just wonder about.

“I’m a genius. No teachers,” Key tried his best to speak with a serious face on, but ended up bursting in laughter. He decided to stuff his mouth with vanilla ice cream just so he would stop. He knew he was bad at lying to people he really didn’t want to lie to. He kept the silver utensil upside-down inside his mouth, biting hard on the cold metal as it muffled his chuckles.

Jonghyun raised an eyebrow. When he sensed that hope was frail, the shorter man pouted, faking a tantrum. That only made Kibum laugh harder and eat even more ice cream. It took the foreigner over a minute to recover from his laugh trip, and when his stomach began aching from all the sniggering, he gave in and told Jonghyun where he was learning his Korean so fast.

“Taemin.”

“Taemin?”

“Yeah,Taemin.”

The brunette furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “I thought your boss’ name was Minho?” Jonghyun asked out of curiosity.

“Yeah.” Kibum effortlessly replied.

Kibum’s answers definitely shot a bullet. It was strange, what he felt. The foreigner could be fraternizing with some other men other than his boss, and that very thought made Jonghyun entertain the feelings of anger and jealousy.

“Then who’s Taemin?” The shorter male pried.

“Minho’s no- nomja, namja chingu? Is that how you say it?” Key shoved another spoonful of vanilla into his mouth after replying, letting the cold metal stay in his mouth again, with the handle sticking out cutely. Jonghyun was definitely taken aback. He thought Taemin was some guy that happened to pass by the cash counter and let his eyes linger on the blonde a little too long for the brunette’s taste. Knowing that this Taemin kid was someone else’s partner made him a little bit relieved, although he still had no idea why he even cared.

The lodge owner hummed in understanding, nodding his head while scooping out of his ice cream tub. There were numerous questions that Jonghyun wanted to ask about Kibum’s work that he wasn’t able to ask for days, but he didn’t want to pry too much nor did he want to scare the blonde away. He toyed with the questions in his head, searching for the right words and waiting for the right timing.

“So… tell me more about your teacher.”

The brunette tried opening up the topic just so he could know about how Kibum was doing and if the people he was always with were treating him well. He was still a foreigner after all – even if he was really Korean by blood – and the shorter male wanted to make sure that the taller man was doing okay.

“Teacher?” The blonde smiled as soon as he cleared it up and told Jonghyun a lot about Taemin. He talked about how they met a few days ago and how he almost got a heart attack (figure of speech, of course) because the redhead surprised him at the counter. He told stories of Minho and Taemin, and how the kid loved to show their relationship in public. The store owner had no problem with it; it was just that Taemin had a tendency to cuddle or kiss at the most awkward times, so it earned the boss a few dirty looks from the customers and it earned the teen a ‘not-at-work’ look from his boyfriend.

In the middle of Key’s storytelling, Jonghyun’s eyes unconsciously wandered to the foreigner’s lips. He watched the taller man’s mouth pads as they moved slowly with every word that Kibum uttered. The end of every sentence seemed like a short death to the lodge owner, because he didn’t want Key to stop talking. He wanted to look at him more, and admire his sheer beauty. Every time the blonde stopped, his lips would form a small pout, unaware of the rapid beating of the brunette’s heart at that cute gesture.

Kibum snapped his fingers in front of Jonghyun, and when that didn’t work, he took the shorter man’s cold spoon and pressed it onto the man’s left cheek. The jolt from the metal utensil surprised Jonghyun, waking him from his trance. His eyes immediately widened while his hand flew to the hand Kibum used to hold the spoon. Both realized how the contact of their skin contrasted the cold temperature of the spoon and let go of the utensil at the same time. The lodge owner cleared his throat while the foreigner shoved another spoonful of ice cream out of embarrassment.

“Anyway, I noticed, you don’t use honorifics.” Jonghyun opened a topic quickly, and luckily, Kibum was curious about it and took the bait.

“Honorifics?” The blonde repeated poorly in confusion.

“Yes. You know, formalities.”

“Formalities…” The foreigner was deeply puzzled. He had never heard of either word before, and the brunette’s sudden usage of both made him think hard about it until his head literally hurt.

“Oh.” Jonghyun uttered in realization. “So you just call people by their names?” the brunette asked Kibum.

“Excuse me?”

“You, just use names?”

Kibum nodded in agreement. He was confused as to why Jonghyun would even ask such a question when the answer was already so obvious. The brunette explained the rules and etiquette of honorifics and formalities (not without difficulty), and with every concept that he explained, the look on Key’s face resembled a look of understanding more and more.

When he finally grasped the meaning, he felt guilt surge all over him, because a lot of elders could’ve misunderstood and thought that he was rude, when actually, he plainly did not know. The foreigner urged Jonghyun to teach him formalities, with excitement manifesting itself through tiny jumps and repeated ‘come ons’ from Key. Jonghyun could only say ‘fine’.

“Minho. What is his age?” Jonghyun inquired.

“Twenty-one.” Key replied with the right hand forming a ‘V’ and the other hand raising an index finger. The brunette nodded and proceeded to teach, but before he could say a word, the blonde’s eyes widened as if a light bulb appeared hovering over his head.

“Wait! I know this!” The blonde exclaimed.Jonghyun was taken by surprise and so he let Kibum say his guess.

“Yeobo! Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?” Key smiled while clapping his hands in victory. Jonghyun could only stare with wide eyes at the foreigner. After a long while of silence, Kibum asked again if he really was right or if Jonghyun was only making a fool out of him.

“Yah! Tell me!” The blonde said, a little pissed off but a little bit more embarrassed because he could’ve said a really dirty word. After all, Minho did say Taemin was sneaking weird words into his Korean lessons every once in a while.

Instead of answering, the lodge owner asked another question. “Why do you think that’s the right word?”

“Minho is twenty-one, and I’m nineteen, and Taemin is eighteen, and he calls him 'yeobo'. So… you’re… Jonghyun-yeobo, too… right…?”

Kibum answered innocently, with his voice getting softer and softer and his head bowing lower and lower as he spoke. He finally peeked through his eyelashes to look at Jonghyun and see what his reaction was, and all he saw was a cute smile. He had no idea why it made his heart beat fast.

“Kibum.” Jonghyun spoke in a sultry voice that made the blonde have goosebumps.

“Very good, but the right one is ‘hyung’.” Jonghyun said before eating another spoonful of his chocolate ice cream, trying to hide his blushing cheeks.

‘No wonder that Taemin kid gets dirty looks from customers. He’s pretty shameless.’The lodge owner smiled and shook his head.

The foreigner nodded as he chanted the newly learnt word over and over, trying to get the pronunciation right. After just a few repetitions, Kibum had mastered it and tried using his updated dictionary to steal Jonghyun’s attention from the tub of frozen dessert in the shorter man’s hands.

“Jonghyun-hyung, I like you.” The blonde said without pretenses and hesitation. That definitely got the lodge owner’s attention. He dropped his spoon into his almost empty ice cream container and his mouth was left agape at the blunt words of the innocent foreigner.

“Uh, Kibum, you know what you said, right?”

“Mm.”

“You… like me.”

“Yeah. Of course I like you, Jonghyun-hyung. You’re good to me.” The blonde said with a small smile and fed himself the last scoop of ice cream inside his tub. He then stood up to find the garbage bin so he could throw the disposable plastic container away.

When Key got up from the couch, it took such a long time before the blonde’s words actually sank into Jonghyun. He wondered endlessly if he had heard or understood Kibum’s words right, or if the foreigner actually knew what he was saying.

He heard the faucet from the kitchen switch on and he heard plates clunking and glasses chinking. The foreigner had begun to do the dishes. The lodge owner used to wash the supper dishes after eating, but tonight, Kibum did it on his own. As the sound of running water filled the entire lodge because of the undeniably awkward silence between them, Jonghyun stayed in the comforts of the living room couch, wondering about how it would’ve sounded if he had never corrected the foreigner’s mistake.

Although it made him doubt his preferences – and whether he was crossing a line or not, he had a girlfriend after all – he wondered how the next few days would be like if he had let Kibum call him ‘honey’.

-> a kyuyunjaeMIN original. :)

A/N: Hey guys. Sorry for not updating. Here's my peace offering. teehee. ^_^

BTW, for you Korean slang experts out there, here's my explanation for the usage of 'Yeobo' instead of 'Jagiya':

Yeobo and Jagiya both mean honey, but jagiya is a lot more common than yeobo. Jagiya is used by people even if they aren't couples but yeobo is reserved for married couples. It's because jagiya is more like 'sweetie' or 'darling'  while yeobo is really a term of endearment for couples. This is why customers (and Jonghyun) are so shocked that Taemin uses yeobo. ;)

COMMENTS ARE CHOCOLATE TO MY HEART. :)